Baptismal
by Evidence
Summary: A baptism cleanes one's soul from their sins. JS


Title: Baptismal

Author: Evidence

Rating: PG

Author's Notes:  Thanks to D and Maple Street.  I just was sitting in church trying to listen to the sermon when the priest said what Father Walker says in this story.  It got me thinking which can either be a good or bad thing *G*.

"The baptism serves to cleanse us, to take away our sins.  It is our clean slate."  Father Walker paused in his sermon meeting Jack's eyes in a middle pew.  

Jack had already been shifting around, uncomfortable to be sitting in the hard wooden pew, uncomfortable to be back in church.   Now he shifted around more, slamming his knee into the readings holder.

"Shit!" he said looking up to see an elderly woman looking back at him.  Her eyebrows were raised and she was giving him a look of disproval.  "Sorry," he said lowering his head.

"Jack, shh," Maria scolded next to him.

Hanna and Kate looked as bored as he was, legs swinging, eyes looking towards the ceiling.  He chuckled to himself.

Father Walker was just concluding his sermon.  "We can all be renewed once we go through another baptism.  Now you can't go back in time and become a baby again held by your father.  But you can find yourself forgiven and make a new start."

Jack wondered what new starts he could ever accomplish.  His life felt more out of order than when he had first kissed Samantha all that time ago.  He thought that had been a life out of order but then he lost Samantha and then he knew true chaos.

He hadn't wanted to go to church but Maria had been insisting, she had been carting the girls every week and Father Walker had been pushing to get him back in the church.  He didn't feel like he belonged anymore.  In some strange way he felt everyone knew what he had done as if his sins were tattooed on his face.  At one time before his mother's death, he had felt the church a comfort but with his faith injured he no longer felt at home in the stained glass structure.  Guilt weighed on his conscious, fear echoed in his heart, and love broke all his emotions.  His short-lived relationship with Samantha Spade had destroyed him and made him whole at the same.

Baptism, the word vibrated though his mind all the way home to a place that no longer felt like home but a prison where he was stuck for his crimes.  Baptism.  Baptism.

The word echoed in his sleep.  He imagined a baptism of a small blonde baby.  Samantha holding the child.  Father Walker christening the baby.  Then he saw Hanna looking up at him with three week old eyes crying as the water washed over her head.

The word whispered in his ear as he saw her at her desk.  She was leaning over with a red marker outlining a map.  Martin walked by and began chatting with her.  She smiled slightly but not as she had for him.  He stared briefly at the scene and then she looked up, her eyes meeting his.  Her smile grew and he felt one form on his own lips.  He walked back to his office his eyes first glazing upon Hanna and Kate's framed pictures as he entered the office.

The word taunted him at home.  Maria would be sitting next to him on the couch only it was Samantha.  He would have to turn away from her in bed for he wasn't kissing her but a pretty blonde.  The girls showed him their graded papers and he smiled at them dearly hoping not to have to make idle conversation with their mother that night.

The word twisted at his soul.  He heard it ring at his eyes during Sunday mass.  As Samantha talked to him about a case he imagined her saying the word in a hushed whisper.  He sat in his car hearing it repeated in his head.  He felt like he was going mad.  Would his love for Samantha kill him slowly, making him first insane and then stopping his heart which seemed to beat only for her now?

The night was cold, dark, silent.  He was trying to clear his head.  Driving about the city thinking about Samantha, his daughters and the state of his life.  His eyes had by chance saw the young man standing by the side of the Circle Lines Ship Dock.  Jack slowed down, narrowing his eyes to get a better look and then the man was gone- disappeared in the dark.  

Jack pulled to a stop, getting out and headed to the spot the man had once stood.  The water was calm expect for a small area where something must have fallen into.  Something or someone.  

"Hey!"  Jack yelled at the water.  It bubbled in response.  He removed his coat, black jacket and shoes.  He jumped in.  The water hit him hard- it was freezing sending chills through his body.  He couldn't see anything- the night made the water dark and murky.  He swam underneath the best his shaking body could do.  He felt no one.  Maybe he had imagined it.  Maybe this was the break from his sanity.  Maybe he should stay under the water and never come up again.  

No, he pushed that thought from his mind.  He would not be like his mother making everyone else suffer because he was in pain.  He reached the surface and took a breath.  If he stayed down in the water much longer he might just kill himself.  He looked at his car, thought of the phone in.   A diving team could be there in a few minutes.  But a few minutes would be too late for the man.  Taking a deep breath he went back down desperately scouring for the man.  Once again he came up to get air and went back down.  This time his hand felt flesh.

Jack dragged the man to the surface and then searched for a way to climb out of the water and back to the asphalt ground   with some effect he did make it back to the Circle Line station.  The man wasn't breathing.  Jack performed CPR, willing the young man with brown hair in front of him to live.  Slowly water bubbled out of his mouth and Jack breathed a sigh of relief.

The EMTs told him that the young man named David had a good chance to live as they wrapped him in blankets and put him in his own ambulance.  Like a mirage before the doors closed Samantha was at his side.  She grabbed his hand.  "You're going to be okay."

He rubbed her hand to see if she was real.  She felt real.

"You saved that kid's life- you know that?"  She smiled at him.

"Until he tries to take it again," Jack choked.

"Maybe he won't want to."  Tears ran down her cheeks.  "Jack you jumped into the water after he did right?  To save him."

"You think I tried to kill myself?"

"I...I'm just concerned."

"No I saw him disappear and then I went searching for him.  I won't do that," he tried to smile back.

"Ma'am, only immediate family."  The EMT spoke.

"She is my family," Jack replied, not realizing what he had said until it came out.  

"Okay," the EMT said, not asking who Sam was.  "Are you warm enough sir?  That was quite the baptism you took tonight."

"What?"  Jack asked

"I said that was quite the swim you took tonight."

"Oh, I thought you had said something else."  Jack paused and held Samantha's hand tighter.  "Please don't let go," he asked of her.

"I won't," she replied.  "I won't."

The end.


End file.
